For espionage and treason
Moscow sends hypersonic scientists to prison camp
October 27, 2023, 6:31 p.m
An employee of the Moscow Zhukovsky Institute is said to have passed on data on an aircraft project. For this he will now be sent to a prison camp for a long time. However, it is unclear whether the allegations are justified. Scientists have been complaining about a climate of fear in Russia for some time.
A court in Moscow has sentenced a physicist to 12 years in a prison camp for espionage and treason after handing over scientific material to Dutch experts. The 66-year-old, who was arrested in December 2020, was a senior employee of the Central Zhukovsky Institute of Aerodynamics in the Moscow region and handed over documents on a planned hypersonic passenger aircraft to colleagues in the Netherlands, Russian media reported, citing court information. The process therefore took place behind closed doors.
In June, an employee of the physicist now under investigation was sentenced to twelve years in a prison camp for the same allegations. The physicists had rejected the accusation of treason, but admitted that they had passed on data on the international aircraft project to the scientists in the Netherlands.
According to the information, experts had examined the documents three times before sending them to see whether they might contain secret data. That shouldn’t have been the case. Nevertheless, the investigators saw this as a betrayal of secrets. In Russia, scientists are repeatedly persecuted by the country’s secret services and criminal justice system.
Many of these cases end with long prison sentences. It is not always clear whether these are alleged or real spies, whether the trials are politically staged to intimidate scientists – or whether the accused have actually violated the law. Many researchers complain about a climate of fear in Russia and a lack of freedom when it comes to exchanges with scientific colleagues abroad.